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PX14A6G 1 D54211px14a6g.Htm United States Securities And 5/4/2021 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000121465921004830/d54211px14a6g.htm PX14A6G 1 d54211px14a6g.htm United States Securities and Exchange Commission Washington, D.C. 20549 Notice of Exempt Solicitation Pursuant to Rule 14a-103 Name of the Registrant: Amazon.com, Inc. Name of persons relying on exemption: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood; American Baptist Home Mission Society; Friends Fiduciary Corporation; Maryknoll Sisters; Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V.; Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, NJ; Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville; Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia; and Unitarian Universalist Association. Address of persons relying on exemption: Investor Advocates for Social Justice, 40 S Fullerton Ave Montclair, NJ 07042 Written materials are submitted pursuant to Rule 14a-6(g) (1) promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Submission is not required of this filer under the terms of the Rule, but is made voluntarily in the interest of public disclosure and consideration of these important issues. The proponent urges you to vote FOR the Shareholder Proposal calling for a Report on Customer Due Diligence, Item 4 at the Amazon Annual Meeting of Shareholders on May 26, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000121465921004830/d54211px14a6g.htm 1/15 5/4/2021 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000121465921004830/d54211px14a6g.htm Summary of the Proposal Item 4 asks Amazon to commission an independent third-party report assessing its process for customer due diligence, to determine whether customers’ use of its surveillance and computer vision products or cloud-based services contributes to human rights violations. Support for this Proposal is warranted because: 1. Amazon sells products and services that pose risks to human rights, including civil rights. Products posing high risk of adverse impacts in the hands of Amazon customers include the Ring Doorbell and the Neighbors App, facial recognition surveillance technology, and Amazon Web Services platforms. These products increase widespread surveillance and may be used to further racial discrimination in policing and immigration enforcement, infringe on privacy, and violate civil liberties. 2. Failure to have an effective system to monitor customers’ use of products and services for potential human rights violations exposes Amazon to legal, financial, human capital, and regulatory risks, as well as loss of consumer trust. Legislators, customers, investors, and employees have requested increased oversight. 3. Amazon’s current systems for oversight of customer use of its high-risk products and the steps it has taken to respond to human rights risks, including a temporary moratorium on facial recognition sales, are insufficient and do not effectively address the significant risks. Rationale for Support of the Proposal 1. Amazon.com is best known as the world’s largest e-commerce platform. But the company has expanded rapidly with the introduction of new technologies, products, and services that raise serious concern for their actual or potential civil and human rights impacts. Those products and services, and associated risks, include: Amazon Web Services (AWS), with 45% of the global market, is by far the largest provider of Internet “cloud” services in the world, with 2020 revenue of $45 billion.1 AWS currently provides cloud services for over 6,500 government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community, as well as for governments and government agencies internationally.2 AWS GovCloud will host the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) system, which will enable unprecedented levels of surveillance of immigrants and U.S. citizens by DHS. 3 The database will house sensitive biometric and biographical data on hundreds of millions of people, including iris scans, voiceprints and palmprints, and, in some cases, DNA samples. AWS also contracts with Palantir Technologies to provide technical infrastructure to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has violated human rights.4 AWS made the decision to remove the controversial Parler app from its server, in spite of longstanding violent, hateful and racist speech on the platform, only after Parler was associated with the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. A more robust, proactive customer due diligence system could have addressed this risk earlier and in a less ad-hoc and more transparent manner.5 2 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000121465921004830/d54211px14a6g.htm 2/15 5/4/2021 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000121465921004830/d54211px14a6g.htm Rekognition is a facial surveillance technology app marketed through AWS.6 Rekognition allows customers to “perform face verification... by comparing a photo or selfie with an identifying document such as a driver's license” and to “understand the average age ranges, gender distribution and emotions expressed by the people, without identifying them.” In April 2021, The Seattle Times reported “Amazon is the largest provider of facial recognition technology to U.S. law enforcement, including federal immigration agencies and the FBI.”7 In June 2020, Amazon put in place a one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition in connection with criminal investigations; however little disclosure on the process, scope, or impact of this is available. Amazon’s moratorium on police use of Rekognition did not address concerns about police use of Ring data or other services. Amazon has disputed numerous studies that have found Rekognition to be racially biased and inaccurate8, misidentifying people of color at far higher rates than white people. In the hands of Rekognition’s police customers9, racially biased facial recognition technology could exacerbate existing systemic racism and racial profiling in policing, including police disproportionately targeting people of color for crimes they did not commit.10 For example, in August 2020, a Black man in Detroit, Robert Williams, was falsely arrested and detained for 30 hours by police after being falsely identified by facial recognition technology.11 At least three other men are known to have been falsely arrested, and detained in jail, due to police use of facial recognition technology — they are all Black.12 In fact, even Amazon’s efforts to “improve” the ability of its facial recognition technology to recognize people of color have violated laws and threatened civil liberties. Along with Microsoft, Amazon’s use of Diversity in Faces, a dataset of 1 million facial images that is intended to train facial recognition algorithms to better recognize faces of color, violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which prohibits companies from profiting off individuals’ biometric data without their consent.13 Amazon does not know how many customers are using Rekognition, which is a prerequisite to effective customer oversight. In a 2020 PBS documentary, AWS CEO Andy Jassy said about police use of Rekognition,: “I don't think we know the total number of police departments that are using facial recognition technology.”14 Ring15 is a home security and “smart home” doorbell system that brings unprecedented surveillance to neighborhoods and through collaborations with police departments. Without delivering any measurable increase to achieve its so-called purpose to improve “safety”,16 Ring cameras pose a threat to basic privacy rights, disproportionately impacting communities of color. Customers of Ring cameras have experienced racist attacks17, ransom demands, harassment, and threats, including attacks targeted at children18. In 2020, an Amazon engineer stated publicly19: “[Ring’s] privacy issues are not fixable with regulation and there is no balance that can be struck. Ring should be shut down immediately.” The fact that Ring has even fired20 its own employees for watching customers’ videos demonstrates the security vulnerabilities with its products. Ring-police partnerships present civil rights and civil liberties concerns: according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation21, even if Ring customers choose not to give police the option of contacting them for their data, police may still gain access to customer data by delivering a warrant to Amazon. The relationship between police and Ring leaves communities of color and all communities vulnerable to discriminatory and unjust surveillance in the absence of clear guidance, oversight, and accountability over potential misuse. In February 2021, emails obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation confirmed that “the LAPD sent requests to Amazon Ring users specifically targeting footage of Black-led protests against police violence that occurred in cities across the country last summer.”22 In August 2021, a Newsweek headline read: “Police Are Monitoring Black Lives Matter Protests With Ring Doorbell Data and Drones, Activists Say.”23 3 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000121465921004830/d54211px14a6g.htm 3/15 5/4/2021 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000121465921004830/d54211px14a6g.htm Ring benefits as police and local governments advertise24 Ring products in exchange for access to data. In 2019, The Guardian revealed that “Ring uses corporate partnerships to shape the communications of police departments it collaborates with, directing the departments’ press releases, social media posts and comments on public posts.”25
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